Founded in 1956, Penn State University Press publishes rigorously reviewed, high-quality works of scholarship and books of regional and contemporary interest, with a focus on the humanities and social sciences. The publishing arm of the Pennsylvania State University and a division of the Penn State University Libraries, the Press promotes the advance of scholarship by disseminating knowledge—new information, interpretations, methods of analysis—widely in books, journals, and digital publications.
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In 1972, the American oil company Texaco, now known as Chevron, extracted its first barrel of crude oil from Amazonian Ecuador. By the time it pulled out of the region some twenty years later, Texaco had extracted oil from at least three hundred wells and left behind nearly sixteen million gallons of spilled oil.
Fat girl problems. Derided by her high-school peers for being overweight, Rachel finally found a sense of purpose and belonging in a promising career as an EMT-that is, until her body got in the way. Shrink is a work of graphic medicine that depicts the emotional and physical realities of inhabiting a large body in a world that is constantly ......
How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being-and Sang Back to Them Ever After
Presents a history of the influence of Black musicians on the Beatles, exploring musical and storytelling legacies full of rich but contested symbolism and the transatlantic circulation of diaspora African arts, tropes, and symbols.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees. When we werent sheltering in place, we were advised to wear masks, wash our hands, and practice social distancing.
Since its construction, Notre Dame Cathedral has played a central role in French cultural identity. In the wake of the tragic fire of 2019, questions of how to restore the fabric of this quintessential French monument are once more at the forefront. This all-too-prescient book, first published in French in 2013, takes a central place in the ......
What is it about puzzles that drives us to figure them out? In this unique and innovative book, Bret L. Rothstein explores how mechanical problems delight and frustrate us, distracting our attention from recognizably useful activities and directing it toward something that may be even more important.
Djuna Barnes once said that there is always more surface to a shattered object than a whole object, and the statement is provocative when considering her own writing and art. Arriving as an accomplished writer and journalist in 1920s Paris, Barnes produced an eclectic body of work whose objects and surfaces continue to fascinate readers. In ......
The romantic and rebellious novelist George Sand, born in 1804 as Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, remains one of France's most infamous and beloved literary figures. Thanks to a peerless translation by Gretchen van Slyke, Martine Reid's acclaimed biography of Sand is now available in English.
